Kiernan lobbies to retain Murray-Darling water cap

Environmentalist and Clean Up Australia Day Coordinator, Ian Kiernan will be lobbying the New South Wales Government to retain the Murray Darling Basin water cap.

Mr Kiernan was guest speaker at the official opening of the Banrock Station Wine and Wetland Centre at Kingston-on-Murray in South Australia's Riverland on Saturday.

He said he is embarrassed to be from New South Wales when he hears the calls from various politicians and irrigators there to remove the cap.

Mr Kiernan said it is a selfish campaign and irrigators across the whole Murray Darling Basin need to be considered.

"I'm certainly going to put whatever pressure that I can on the Government of New South Wales to realise that they have got to consider the river as belonging to all four states [New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Queensland]," he said.

"It belongs to the whole country, [and is] not just an opportunity to mine the environment for poorly performing agricultural operations up there."